Of Flesh and Blood (24 page)

“No,” Tyler said. “I didn’t.”

Craig’s eyes widened with the first flickers of fury. He waved the page, which looked like an Internet printout, at Tyler. “You mind if I ask, Dr. McGrath, why
the fuck
you didn’t share that
little
detail before we signed the consent?” he growled.

“Nate had cancer cells in the fluid around the brain,” Tyler said evenly. “Drugs like Vintazomab don’t cross the so-called blood-brain barrier. The only way to reach the cancer is by infusing the medicine through a lumbar puncture.”

With his free hand curled into a fist at his side, Craig took a sudden step closer. A waft of body odor hit Tyler and registered like a visceral warning, but he resisted the urge to back away.

“That’s not what I asked,” Craig said through gritted teeth. “Why didn’t you warn us of the
real
risks before we went ahead with it?”

“Nate’s leukemia was so advanced.” Tyler sighed. “I had run out of treatment options. Vintazomab was my very last shot. My Hail Mary.”

“
Your Hail Mary?
” Craig’s lip curled into a full sneer. “You arrogant prick. You can chuck those all day long from your fucking ivory tower, can’t you? Using kids like Nate as your guinea pigs. And you’ll get all the glory when one of them connects!”

“It wasn’t like that.” Tyler crossed his arms and shook his head fervently. “I would never expose a patient to an experimental drug unless I thought the benefit outweighed the risk. Especially Nate. I cared about him. A lot.”

Craig lunged another step nearer. His face was inches from Tyler’s. “You hardly knew him!” he shouted, exhaling flecks of spit along with a sour blast of stale coffee and cigarettes.

Tyler stood his ground. “Well enough to know how special he was.”

Tyler braced himself for the punch or blow he expected to fall at any moment, but Craig left his slabs of fists at his sides. He squinted hard. “Nate was going to do big things, one day. Might have even been a pro ball player.”

“No question, Craig.”

Stafford stepped back and shook his head in disgust. “We’ll never know now, huh?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Maybe Nate didn’t stand much of a chance by the end,” Craig croaked. “Maybe there wasn’t much left to do. But I know this: You and that shitty drug took his last few days from Nate. From Laura, Brit, and me, too.” His eyes glowed with indignation and his voice faltered. “We didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

Ashamed, Tyler dropped his gaze to the floor. Craig was right. Maybe he had stolen the only chance for Nate’s family to ever find closure in his death. He looked back up at Craig and extended his hand. “I am so sorry for your loss,” he said.

Craig just stared at him for a long moment. Then slowly he raised his right arm, but instead of a handshake his fingers curled until only the forefinger was extended. He shook it at Tyler like a gun. “Sorry doesn’t cut it!” he snapped. “I might be just some dumb cement layer, but I been doing some reading about informed consent. And best as I can tell, you didn’t get it from us.”

Tyler knew better than to argue. He just dropped his hand to his side.

“We’re going to sue you and your precious fucking hospital for every dime we can!” Craig barked. “And I’m going to the press, too. To warn others. I don’t want you screwing over any other families. Making decisions that aren’t yours to make!”

For the second evening in a row, Jill Laidlaw had the house to herself. In the sexy new black dress that she had saved for months, waiting for the right occasion, she sat at her desk in the home office with a lipstick-kissed glass of red wine in her hand and her cat, Kramer, balled around her ankle, purring.

She finished the last sip of wine and glanced at her watch again: 9:44. Their celebratory dinner was beyond salvaging; the male couple who ran the best restaurant in Oakdale, Le Bistro, would never seat them after ten. Besides, when Tyler called two hours earlier promising to hurry home, he had sounded even more shaken than the previous evening.

Still, Jill felt too upbeat to slip out of her dress. She poured herself a second glass of wine and turned her attention back to the computer screen. For the umpteenth time, she pored over the spreadsheet that Andrew Pinter had constructed from her data. She scanned the list, row by row, studying the patients’ functional scores in the areas of speech, mobility, and coordination. She carefully compared the scores of each of her MS patients before and six months after implantation with reengineered stem cells. Her smile broadened as she saw the consistently positive trend—improvement in some, a lack of disease progression in others—among the treated patients.

Then Jill turned her attention to the spreadsheet showing the results from the control (or untreated) group, none of whom had received stem cells. Most of the control patients had worsened and were less functional over the same period that the treated patients had improved.

Despite herself, Jill was still astounded by the dramatic improvement in the treated group. Even before Pinter had shown her the spreadsheets, she had seen patients who, for the first time in months or years, could dress themselves, speak more clearly, or use a keyboard. Two patients had even escaped
the confinement of their wheelchairs and were walking with the aid of only a cane. Over the past months, a few patients had tearfully hailed Jill as their savior, claiming the stem cells had given them a new lease on life. But she knew how strong the placebo effect was, and so she had not fully trusted the patients’ accounts or even her own eyes. Now that she saw those beautifully diverging lines on the graph, and their accompanying low P value, Jill suddenly appreciated the significance of her new treatment approach.

Another tingle ran through her. It felt better than all the spelling bee championships, scholarships, and other academic distinctions combined. After all the frustrations and setbacks, her experimental treatment appeared to offer fresh hope for patients with advanced multiple sclerosis. And, she realized with another quiver, it promised to cement her reputation internationally.

“There are worse things than surprising yourself, huh, Kramer?” She reached down and swept her fat cat off the floor and onto her lap, indifferent to the fur that stuck to her new dress and the animal’s squirms of protest.

“It’s almost too good to be true,” she said to the cat as she stroked his neck. She fought off a sudden glimmer of a worry that she could be overlooking something.
Don’t ruin this moment by overanalyzing it!
she reprimanded herself.
That’s something Mom would do
.

Growing up, Jill had often thought of her emotionally remote mother as a killjoy. But that same temperament made Angela Laidlaw an excellent lawyer. She would have become an even better judge, had her husband not been stricken with Alzheimer’s. The memory rekindled Jill’s guilt.

The cat began to whine and claw at Jill’s wrist. “Trust me, Kramer, Dad is still with it enough to be proud of me for this,” she said, before lowering the cat to the floor. “Besides, if my treatment works for MS then the same approach might help in Alzheimer’s, too,” she rationalized, though she wasn’t convincing herself much more than the cat.

Jill realized she hadn’t spoken to her parents in almost a week. It was too late to phone, but she knew her mother often logged on to the Internet to catch up on e-mails after her husband had gone to bed. Jill clicked on the videoconference icon on her screen. As the tinny ring shook the speaker, an image of herself from the perspective of the computer’s camera popped up on the monitor. In her fitted black dress, with blue eyes highlighted by eye shadow and tawny hair worn down past her shoulders, Jill recognized her
own attractiveness but only in a cold-eyed sense, as though staring at a stranger. Or, at least, an out-of-date image—one captured from her life before she became so caught up in her academic ambition that she thought of almost nothing else.

After ten unanswered rings, Jill gave up. Gently shaking Kramer free of her ankle, she rose from the desk and carried the glass and bottle back to the kitchen.

As Jill stood at the sink washing the glass, her thoughts turned to Tyler again. He was taking his patient’s death so hard. She wondered again if her husband had chosen the wrong specialty, having to deal with critically ill and dying children. He had more trouble than she did keeping emotions at bay.

Tyler had once brought the same passion to their relationship. She recalled the romantic surprises he used to spring on her—the unexpected dinners, the wrapped jewelry boxes hidden in coat pockets, the unscheduled getaways, and the flowers . . . so many flowers. But it had been months since a bouquet had arrived for her. Jill knew she shouldered some of the responsibility. At times, his romantic excess crawled under her skin. Just because she loved him—was even still
in
love with him—didn’t mean that she needed big romantic gestures. They were outside her comfort zone.

After finishing the dishes, Jill turned off the lights and headed up to bed. With the research funding worries alleviated, she expected to sleep better than she had in months. But her giddy excitement kept her awake. She had already sworn Andrew Pinter to secrecy. She planned not to tell anyone else until the results were verified and her paper was ready for publication; the risk of intellectual theft—or worse, the humiliation of being publicly refuted—was too high. However, experience dictated that the early results would leak out sooner than later. When it came to high-profile studies, academics were as discreet as gossip columnists.

She warmed with anticipation again as she considered the awe, respect, and even jealousy her study might engender among her colleagues—the lifelong validation she had sought.

Eventually, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

She woke up just before six
A.M
. to find Tyler lying quietly on his back beside her. Feeling more aroused than she had in recent memory, Jill ran her fingers along his bare shoulder and rubbed his arm gently. Without waking,
Tyler stirred and then rolled away from her. Giving up, she climbed out of bed.

In the kitchen, Jill ate a breakfast of toast, fruit, and eggs; as much as she had eaten for the last week of breakfasts combined. She even combed through the entire newspaper—stopping to complete the crossword puzzle, like she used to—before she headed in to work.

She was still riding a natural high when she arrived at the Virginia McGrath Neurosciences Building. Inside, she barely took note of the bright yellow signs warning staff to take special contact precautions. As the
C. diff
outbreak had not touched her work environment, it was easy to push the alerts out of mind.

On the way into the hospital, Jill had received a text message that Senator Wilder wanted to see her. As soon as she reached his floor, she went directly to Wilder’s private room. As usual, she had to stop outside his door to flash her credentials for the Secret Service agent on duty, a bald burly man who would have looked more natural in military fatigues than a navy blue suit.

Inside, Wilder lay in pajamas, propped up by the raised head of his bed and covered by a blanket. Jill thought his color had drained, but she kept the impression to herself.

“Thank you for coming again, Dr. Laidlaw.” Wilder’s face broke into another beguiling, slightly lopsided smile. “I’m sure I’m becoming one of your most bothersome patients.”

“Never, Senator.” Jill pulled up a metal chair to the bedside. “How are you today?”

“I can’t complain.” He chuckled. “Well, I can—and believe me, I do—but it d-doesn’t help much.”

Jill smiled politely. “I spoke to my father-in-law, Senator.”

Wilder nodded shakily. “Dr. McGrath dropped by yest-yesterday.”

“Did he reassure you about the sanctity of the Alfredson?”

His shoulders twitched in what passed for a shrug. “He tried.”

Jill tilted her head inquisitively. “You’re not convinced?”

“Bit of a job hazard.” Wilder waved his hand clumsily. “After all those years on Capitol Hill, I just assume people always mean the opp-opposite of what they tell me.”

Jill chuckled. “You mentioned you had other sources. Have you heard any different?”

“Putting aside the brand-name value of the Alfredson,” he said, without answering her question, “have you any idea how much the land beneath it is worth?”

She blew out her cheeks. “A fortune.”

“At least double that.”

“William told me that most of the hospital’s funding and capital costs come from the foundation, not the family,” she pointed out. “He said it would be a legal nightmare for the Alfredsons to try to sell off the hospital.”

“One person’s legal nightmare is another’s opportunity.”

She eyed him intently. “Senator, do you know something my father-in-law doesn’t?”

Wilder considered the question for a moment, before offering a slight shrug. “All just rumors.”

“Well, I’ve just learned some promising news about my study. If the data holds up, it should bring some good publicity to the Alfredson. Might even make the hospital harder to sell.”

“Or easier.” He smiled widely and waved again. “Forgive me, Dr. Laidlaw. I am a born con-conspiracy theorist.” Wilder burped loudly. “Excuse me.”

“Are you okay, Senator?”

Wilder’s cheeks puffed and he swallowed rapidly a few times, as though gagging. “Guess I can’t talk about Washington without getting a little queasy.” He smiled again and held out his trembling hand. “Now tell me about your great s-success.”

She hesitated. “Most of the people inside my lab haven’t even heard yet.”

“Dr. Laidlaw, I’m famous for my discretion. To this day, my campaign manager still thinks I’m stumping in New Hampshire.” He winked. “Please, I want to hear about your breakthrough.”

Enthused by his interest, and inexplicably eager to please him, Jill summarized her early findings and their hopeful implication for MS victims.

“Congratulations, Dr. Laidlaw.” He smiled widely and wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow. “On behalf of all MS patients, thank you.”

Jill felt her face flushing. “It’s still early.”